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Obama Seeks Volunteer Drug War Soldiers

Everybody loves volunteerism, but this is just nuts:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is developing plans to seek up to 1,500 National Guard volunteers to step up the military's counter-drug efforts along the Mexican border, senior administration officials said Monday.

The plan is a stopgap measure being worked out between the Defense Department and the Homeland Security Department, and comes despite Pentagon concerns about committing more troops to the border — a move some officials worry will be seen as militarizing the region.

Well, what the hell else would it be seen as? We're not sending these dudes down there to do landscaping. Pete Guither thinks it will end badly:

Take soldiers trained for war, seek out volunteers out of those who specifically would like to fight a drug war, arm them, and put them on American soil near a potentially volatile border.

Get ready for another Esequiel Hernandez -- possibly many.

The whole thing really is a recipe for disaster, as if the drug war isn’t enough of a disaster already. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but there are still people in our government dreaming up dumb drug war ideas that no one's thought of before.

An Awesome Marijuana Debate on the McLaughlin Group


When you're seeing a discussion like this on the McLaughlin Group, you know marijuana reform has gone mainstream:



On a program that's frequently characterized by fervent debate and hostile exchanges, often to the point of being unbearable, the guests actually seem to be largely in agreement about moving beyond marijuana prohibition. Wow. We've come a long, long way.

U.S. Admits Failure, Calls Off Opium Eradication in Afghanistan

This is big news:

TRIESTE, Italy (Reuters) - Washington is to dramatically overhaul its Afghan anti-drug strategy, phasing out opium poppy eradication, the U.S. envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan told allies on Saturday.
…
"The Western policies against the opium crop, the poppy crop, have been a failure. They did not result in any damage to the Taliban, but they put farmers out of work," [Richard] Holbrooke told Reuters after a series of bilateral meetings in Italy.

"We are not going to support crop eradication. We're going to phase it out," he said. [Reuters]

It's not everyday that a major international drug war program gets the rug pulled out from under it. Only two months ago, the plan was to increase eradication efforts by flooding Afghanistan's major opium producing regions with U.S troops. It was a terrible plan for lots of reasons, thus this sudden reversal is a surprising positive development.

Put simply, it appears that the State Dept. was trying to choose between escalating eradication efforts or eliminating them. After weighing their options, they eventually made the right decision. It would be nice to see a similar analysis applied to the war on drugs in its entirety.

Boring Drug War Reporting From the Mainstream Press

Last week, the UN released a major report that, for the first time, acknowledges and condemns the growing movement to legalize drugs, while simultaneously endorsing decriminalization for many drug crimes. No matter what your views on drug policy may be, it's remarkable that the UN is jumping headfirst into the legalization debate. It's equally notable that they're calling on countries around the world to reconsider policies of arresting users for small amounts of drugs.

Tragically, however, reporters at the Associated Press and USA Today somehow managed to take this groundbreaking report and turn it into something far less interesting. Both stories focus almost entirely on fluctuations in illicit drug production, which should be perfectly predictable by now to anyone who's followed international drug policy over a period of years. It's worth mentioning, but there's nothing new or exciting about it, particularly in the context of a report that was otherwise overflowing with controversial, politically-charged content.

Both stories buried the report's discussion of decriminalization, with USA Today's Donna Leinwand even managing to withhold mention of it until the very last line. What could have been a thought-provoking story about the international drug war leadership calling for fewer drug arrests was instead just another annual accounting of the drug war's progress (or lack thereof).

The point here isn't that an avowed partisan such as myself wants more media coverage that's favorable to my views. Of course I do. But my own prejudices notwithstanding, it's just a fact that the political focus of this report was unprecedented and powerfully newsworthy. The document literally begins on its first page with a heated discussion of how controversial the drug war has become, yet AP and USA Today failed to even mention this central theme of the report.

It's not a matter of taking sides, but rather simply acknowledging controversy when that's a major dimension of the story. It's in your interest to do this. The vigorous political debate that now surrounds the war on drugs is the easily the most effective angle for attracting readership to your drug policy coverage. Ironically, Leinwand's USA Today piece has links at the top of the page encouraging readers to submit the story to news aggregator sites including Digg and Reddit, which can exponentially increase your traffic. And guess what kinds of stories Digg and Reddit users are looking for. It's hilarious to find USA Today deliberately courting traffic from online communities that are obsessed with drug policy reform, while simultaneously ignoring the hooks that appeal to those audiences. Framing the story around the topics of legalization and decriminalization wouldn’t just have been appropriate under the circumstances, it would have made for a better headline, more links, discussion and traffic.

If you don’t believe me, write the story I'm suggesting and watch it outperform your initial coverage. I dare you.

Marijuana Expo Draws 20,000 to LA Convention Center

Another short video from Mike Gray, for Common Sense for Drug Policy. This one is from Todd McCormick's recent THC Expo in Los Angeles -- as Mike describes it, the "[l]argest marijuana merchandising exhibit in US History," "draw[ing] crowds and exhibitors from all over the world to the Los Angeles Convention Center." This could not happen if marijuana were not basically accepted by society, or a large part of it, despite the retrograde laws that still see thousands arrested daily. View the first video in the series, "Retirees Demand Marijuana," here. In case anyone doesn't know who Mike Gray is, by the way, you should know that he's a distinguished filmmaker and author, whose credits include the late 1970s Jane Fonda-Jack Lemmon-Michael Douglas movie The China Syndrome, as well as extensive work on the Star Trek: The Next Generation series. In drug policy he is well known as author of the book Drug Crazy, possibly the best introduction to the madness of the drug war yet written. (Mike's a member of our advisory board too.)

Cato Hill Briefing -- Federal Drug Policy: Time to Shift Priorities

The Cato Institute invites you to a Capitol Hill Briefing -- "Federal Drug Policy: Time to Shift Priorities" featuring Hon. Bob Barr, Liberty Strategies; Pat Nolan, Vice President, Prison Fellowship and Tim Lynch, Director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice. President Obama’s new drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, says he wants to banish the idea of a “war on drugs” because the federal government should not be “at war with the people of this country.” An important and welcome announcement, to be sure, but what government policies will be actually adjusted, canceled, or reversed? At a minimum, the time is right to reverse the militarization of law enforcement, abolish mandatory minimum sentencing, and stop federal meddling in the state referendum and initiative process. Join us for a wide-ranging discussion regarding new directions for federal drug policy. Cato events on Capitol Hill are free of charge and open to the public. This event features an included lunch. To register, visit www.cato.org, fax (202) 371-0841, or call (202) 789-5229 by 12:00 p.m., Monday, July 6. News media inquiries only (no registrations), please call (202) 789-5200. If you can't make it to the event, watch the archived video of this Hill Briefing at www.cato.org.
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